Paul Lester Photo

Meet Bishop Raymond Williams. Early on Monday morning I felt the need to get out and shoot some pictures. My wife and I were staying in downtown Columbus, our son had just graduated from THE Ohio State University, and all was well. My wife was coming down with a cold or something and wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed in the bed.

Our hotel room faced nearly due east and I kept the curtains open just a slight bit so that I could see the dawn approach. It’s a beautiful sight. One that I don’t like to miss. As the day began, I got up, grabbed my camera, put on my 50mm lens, and headed outside into downtown Columbus. As I walked the streets, I snapped pictures here and there. On the way back towards the hotel, I noticed a man on the opposite side of the street doing a bit of preaching. Mind you, I used to not be one to approach someone on the street and ask to take their picture, especially a street preacher. i wanted to be as far away as possible. However, there was something absolutely melodious and attractive about this man’s voice. So, I crossed the street to meet him.

He greeted me heartily, asked my name, shook my hand and then we started to converse. I guess what attracted me to him was that he was nice to everyone who passed, smiling and wishing them a blessed day. Most people, I saw, would not meet his eyes, which was a shame as they would have met a very kind and gentle soul and their day would have been changed, as mine was.

He told me that he was the ‘baby’ of 17 children. He is 72 and one of a few preachers in his family. I told him about my brother, Fred Jr., who is a preacher. He asked if I’d received my ‘calling’ yet. I told him no. He said that he could feel that it was only a matter of time for me. I simply smiled. In his presence, I was almost tearful. It’s hard to explain. I felt really loved just standing there next to him. I’ve never experienced that. It was strange and wonderful. I could have stayed there all morning, it seems. He just had that type of aura, power, energy, or whatever you choose to call it.

We talked about 30 minutes, then he was off to wherever else he was going and I was much richer for the experience and felt that I had had a ‘blessed’ morning just sharing that space with him for those brief moments. I’d certainly like to see him again and, should my travels take me there, I will. You can find him in front of the Starbucks on Capital Square in downtown Columbus, OH. You’ll be much richer for the experience, if you stop and talk with this wonderful man.

Before I left, he put his hands on my shoulder, closed his eyes, and said a prayer for me and my family and wished my son, Pedro, luck in finding a job. A blessed morning, indeed.

When I look at one of my images and try to decide if I like or not, I try to see a story, paragraph, or even a sentence of meaning … maybe even a word. Sometimes those words are there in quantity, other times the image remains mute, having nothing at all to say.

Yesterday, in the steady rain, I saw a number of possibilities of images that could have possibly spoken to me. There, in the glen, was a small stream burbling over the rocks. Standing sentinel over the bank, the watchful eyes of a Beech tree. There were any number of combinations of photos that I could have shot. Since I had on my boots, I could have gone into the stream, near it, almost anywhere. With my 50mm lens, or 18-270mm, I certainly could have had a composition that I would think would be, not only pleasing, but meaningful, too. A composition that would have given the viewer, a sense of that stream. A photo that spoke.

There were many times during this shoot when I thought to change lenses. Why? Because this was a once in a lifetime shoot. No, I wasn’t at any exotic location that I couldn’t get back to, but think about it … all of our shots are once in a lifetime. Never again will that exact moment pass, that exact configuration of time and space. It’s quite humbling. Sure, there will be other times that it will be raining, and I’ll be there, probably not with the Lensbaby, though.

Anyway, after having used the Lensbaby a number of times, I run hot and cold with it. I’ve seen some good portraits, but have yet to see any good landscape shots, but somehow, I keep believing that I might be able to pull one off. No go. A lot of my landscape shots seem to give me motion sickness. It just looks unnatural. It looks gimmicky.

A friend of mine, Stephen, asked me if he should get a Lensbaby. I told him that I’d let him borrow mine for a month and he could see if it fit his particular shooting style. I told him that he’d either love it or absolutely hate it, but that it was for him to decide. Not me.

Going back to the above metaphor about pictures having something to say. If the picture has nothing to say in the first place, no amount of tricks, I think, is going to give it a voice. However, if you have found that photo that has a voice, then using the Lensbaby may introduce a bit too much noise and that voice may never be heard. It could be the wrong tool for the job, but it just isn’t getting the job done for me.

Determined not to give up, I’ve switched aperture disks and have gone from the f/4 to the f/5.6 to take away a little more of the effect. With a small enough aperture, I’m pretty sure that it will turn into a regular 50mm lens, albeit a very sloooooowwwww 50mm lens! We’ll see what happens. I’m going to try it on some different things, periodically.

I continue to read Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit. In one of her chapters, she talks about having too much experience, or not enough inexperience. The premise is that when we are inexperienced, we don’t have as much fear. We don’t have any idea of the limitations. Also, there is not that feeling of been there and done that.

Within the same chapter, she talks about warriors having “No favorite weapon”. That is because they never know where the attack will come from and which weapon they will need to use. Woe to you if you get into a sword fight and pull out your favorite weapon, a knife. It might not bode so well for you.

In thinking of this, I must admit that I do have my favorite weapons, or lenses if you will. My two favorites are the 18-270mm, for it’s convenience, and the 50mm just because I like the sharpness, the large aperture opening, and the field of view. As mentioned in other posts, I rarely use the 11-18mm; however, I think that I should use it a lot more often, as it takes considerable skill to use it and get good pictures out of it. I’m even going to give the much maligned Lensbaby a go for a while. Having a favorite and neglecting other lenses results in laziness and complacency. I can still get the shots, but, there just doesn’t seem to be anything new.

So, I am going to integrate a “clock like” methodology into my photography practice. I’ll practice with one lens for a while, then move on around the clock, practicing with each for a while, let’s say a month. Eventually, I’ll have to come back around to the beginning to start all over again. This could work with subjects, too. Shoot landscapes for while, people for a while, then architecture, macros, etc. It’s almost limitless and keeps you sharp and there is always something new.

I don’t know what the proper interval will be for me. Perhaps a week or two. I think that a month will be too long. We’ll see. I have no idea where I’ll start, though. It will be with the 11-18 or the Lensbaby. So, if you see a lot of LB shots or super wide angle shots in the next couple weeks, you’ll know.